Brian Brendan Wright

Who is Brian Brendan Wright?

Brian Brendan Wright is an Irish criminal involved in fixing horse races by doping more than 20 race horses in 1990 as well as a drug trafficker who is estimated to have smuggled 3 tons of cocaine into Great Britain over a period of two years. Originally based in Britain, he had been out of the country when authorities began arresting members of his organization as the result of a six-year investigation resulting from the capture of a converted fishing trawler, the Sea Mist, after Irish customs officials discovered 599 kg of cocaine while docked at Cork, Ireland in September 1996.

Eventually relocating to northern Cyprus, he purchased a £300,000 villa near occupied Lapithos in the name of a Turkish Cypriot friend and, by 1998, his organization operated freely as the northern Cyprus government is recognized only by Turkey and thus has no extradition treaties with any other country.

In 2002, British authorities announced the capture of a top member of his organization, South African drug trafficker Hilton John Van Staden, who eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to smuggle drugs into the country with customs officials claiming the destruction of Wright's organization.